[The church and old age in history and in the present]

Firstly, the considerable cultural-historical efficiency of the biblical belief is shown in its influence upon the status and the self-comprehension of elderly people. The Old Testamental monotheism leads to the disenchantment of man and a sober judgement of age, free of superstition. The theology of grace in the New Testament teaches the old to look upon the Lord hopefully, despite all deficits of life, instead of ending in a desperate balance of life. In the course of ecclesiastical history the basic biblical positions have mainly been kept till the 19th century with social efficiency, despite a certain narrowness by patriarchalism. Industrialisation however, was accompanied by a theological development, which did rather follow philosophical fashions of that time than social requirement. In connection with empirical Gerontology some Protestant theologians have tried a new concretisation of the fourth commandment for our time and conditions of life for more than one decade.